Quicksand
by Skylar Vega
Summary: Hope is the last thing in life we all lose. Spoilers for Living Doll.


**Quicksand**  
By Skylar

She jumped in place, reaching for her gun when she heard the loud bang that came behind her. Turning around abruptly, however, she quickly realized she hadn't heard a gunshot, and so she put her gun away and watched with her eyes wide and her breath caught in her throat.

Nick Stokes had just walked out of the lab, banging the door loudly as he exited the building. She watched him wearily as he walked, tense, raking his fingers through his short hair, and upon walking by a vending machine he stooped, contemplated it for a moment before he swung a punch at it. The machine swayed back and came into its original position, but the CSI used all his force to hit it again, and again, until the booming sound reminded her of being caught in the middle of a shootout.

She wasn't the only one who was shocked by his outburst. A few people gathered outside the building, on smoke breaks or merely lounging, were looking in his direction, and yet nobody moved. Sofia quickly ran over, not really knowing how she was going to stop him but she figured if she didn't he was going to break his hand or worse.

"Nick!" she shouted behind him, but if he heard her he didn't pay any attention. She tried to grab his arm, but she lost her grip on it and he hit the vending machine again and again. "Nick, stop!"

The glass was beginning to crack and she grabbed his arm again, tighter this time, and the force of his next blow pulled her forward but she held her ground as best she could. Upon feeling the resistance Nick finally stopped, leaning against the glass and banging his forehead against it once. Sofia put her hand on the back of his neck, leaning into him but he turned around, leaned against the vending machine and slowly slid down onto the pavement. She kneeled in front of him, her hand on his arm. People stood there, watching, but a stern look from her sent them scattering into the building or away from it.

She returned her attention to Nick. His knees were up against his chest and his forehead rested on them. His skin was hot and red, and she felt his pulse quick against her palm.

"Your hand," she noted, watching the red welts on his knuckles oozing blood, flaps of skin hanging off by a thread. She reached into her pocket and produced a handkerchief, tried to wrap it around his hand but he winced loudly.

"Sorry."

His head came up and he rested the back of it against the vending machine as she continued tending to his hand. She worked carefully as he sighed, and eventually she felt him relax a little. Fearing hurting him more she left the handkerchief loosely wrapped around his fingers and looked at him. His eyes were closed but he looked tense.

She continued to hold his hand and inched closer. "Nick—"

"She's gonna die," he said desperately.

"She's _not_ gonna die," Sofia insisted, but the way he opened his eyes and stared ahead, desperation and bitterness in his features, she knew she may as well had spoken those words in a different language.

"We have Natalie in custody."

He chuckled bitterly and shook his head. "She doesn't know her own name, how the hell is she gonna tell us where Sara is?"

Sofia looked at him. She'd never really seen Nick like this, this hopeless. He'd always been one of the strong ones, one of the very few left standing when everyone was out, and when others gave up Nick kept pushing, kept going forward. It was one of the many things she'd always admired about him, his tenaciousness, his ability to remain grounded when the world around him was coming apart.

Seeing him like this now she began to wonder if all was lost. She wondered if the time was out, if they would finally find Sara, only to put her body to rest six feet underground. For a moment she let her mind get invaded by those thoughts and she felt his desperation and anger, but she shook her head, knowing that no matter how quickly or slowly time passed, they _had_ to keep going.

And he needed to know that. He needed to keep his head above the water, even if she had to do it for him. She couldn't let him be the first one to come undone like this.

"We found _you_."

He met her eyes briefly before he looked away again. He didn't wanna go there, had spent the entire time since Sara went missing trying to avoid going to that place, going back to the desert and into that box. He saw Sara's evidence, tried not to connect it back to his evidence. He imagined her blood and tried not to picture his blood, imagined her desperation and pain and tried not to relive his.

But it was there each time, no matter how hard he tried, it was there. The smell of dirt and the iron of his blood, the sound of his erratic breathing, the feeling of the gun against his hand. The voice of Walter Gordon and the thinning of oxygen, slipping away from life and towards death. It was selfish, useless, to be consumed by those thoughts, to be pulled back into that forsaken coffin, but the more he tried to make it stop the more it consumed him.

"We had nothing to go on. Nothing. Gordon was dead, we were at a dead end, just like we are now," Sofia continued. "But we found you, and we'll find Sara."

He shook his head, bringing his good hand to his face and running his fingers through his eyes. He felt an intense headache, the pain from his hand pulsating and reverberating through his body, but it couldn't match the frustration he felt inside, the desperation and the anger, the helplessness.

He'd tried. He'd tried to make this about Sara, concentrate on the evidence and do whatever he could to find her. But the seconds tickled by, turning into minutes and minutes into hours and their efforts became barren. They had Natalie in custody, but she was so far off her element he knew no amount of interrogation would give them their answers. She may as well be dead, just like Walter Gordon, and they would still be standing in the same spot in this endless maze.

Sofia sat next to him, keeping his broken hand in hers, waiting and everybody that passed them by stared, but she ignored their glances and waited. The night was chilly and neither of them had a jacket but she put that out of her mind. He relaxed slowly, though the anguish remained in his features, and after a moment of silence his broken fingers twitched in her hand.

"I know what it's like, lying there thinking nobody's gonna come for you."

She looked at him, barely hearing what he'd said, and it hadn't occurred to her until that moment that this wasn't just about Sara but about his own experiences, his own hellish night out in the desert. Her heart ached then and her determination ten-folded.

"We'll find her," Sofia repeated, with enough conviction to make him look at her. There was a thin glossiness in his eyes and a knot began to form in her throat but she swallowed it away.

She began to look down but with his good hand he grabbed her cheek and pressed his forehead against hers, strong and desperate and frustrated, anguished and lost. He wanted her to feel it, wanted to get her inside his head somehow and see it and understand it and do whatever she could to take it away. She gripped his shirt, betraying her calm exterior and trying to ignore her own frustration, her forehead on the bridge of his nose and the faint amount of hope flickering to thinness.

They sat there alone, seconds slowly tickling by. Soon the rain began to fall.

THE END  
5/21/07


End file.
